Reflections, Observations, and Analyses Pertaining to the Canadian Political Scene

Monday, June 26, 2017

UPDATED: A Litany Of Failure

While I normally do not read the National Post, a tweet by @trapdinawrpool about a column caught my attention. Written by Kelly McParland, the article offers an uncompromising assessment of a Liberal political landscape littered with broken promises coupled with a return to the party's traditional arrogance.

Why is this important? Because with its brilliant campaign to win power, the party was, in many Canadians' minds, the antidote to the poison that had permeated our political system thanks to the long and dark rule of the Harper Conservatives. A "new way" of doing politics was heralded, and hopes were high.

Now, soon coming up to the two-year mark of the Trudeau administration, those hopes have waned, and how that is affecting the many young people who voted for the first time in the last election is at this point unknown. Even old warhorses like me were disappointed, but it is a disappointment borne, and thus tempered, by many years of political observation, so the effect on people like me is likely less dramatic than on less-seasoned voters.

McParland writes:

Balanced budgets have been abandoned. Limited deficits are a thing of the past. Electoral reform crashed and burned like a damaged drone.

Canada’s indigenous people have refused to be jollied along with happy talk and photo ops, signalling that it will take more than a renamed office block in Ottawa to reverse generations of built-up anger.

Better relations with the provinces ran aground on Trudeau’s decision to stick with the Tory funding formula on health care, as well as its decision to side with Alberta on pipelines rather than British Columbia, which is determined to put such projects in their graves.

Trudeau’s victory in 2015 was supposed to be the last election ever held under the first-past-the-post system. What will voters think when they head to the polls in 2019 and awaken to the fact nothing has changed? If they start looking for answers they may have trouble getting factual information, as the Liberals’ pledge of better transparency and openness has been shovelled onto the growing heap of stuff they’re not really going to do.

The inquiry into murdered and missing women? After months of delay, indigenous leaders have complained loudly of poor leadership and bad communications. The justice minister’s own father denounced the affair as “a bloody farce” and demanded firings.

Attempting to explain this sad state of affairs, this chasmic disparity between rhetoric and reality, McParland looks to the Liberals' traditional Achilles heel, hubris,

a chronic ailment that afflicted so many previous Liberal regimes and seems particularly virulent among prime ministers named Trudeau – is a big reason. Trudeau simply shrugged off the possibility that governing might be harder than he thought, or that the world was trickier to deal with than the application of some sunny ways. It didn’t take a genius to recognize that many of the pledges dangled before the electorate were simply impractical or unrealistic, and that no rookie government could push through so much change in so short a time in a democratic system where opposing opinions proliferate and are meant to be respected.

Whatever the cause, the effects are bound to reverberate, and the ultimate damage to our political hopes and sensibilities is yet to be determined.

UPDATE: Thanks to The Mound for pointing out this article in today's Globe which is also less than laudatory of Mr. Trudeau and his merry men and woman. The writer, Andrew MacDougall, offers an interesting view of our prime minister's persistent perambulations:

For anyone peeking into politics occasionally – that is to say, most voters – they continue to see a smiling, upbeat Justin Trudeau on the national and global stages, getting mostly positive ink outside Ottawa. There’s a reason Mr. Trudeau devotes so much time and effort to polishing his image: it keeps the messes hidden from view.

Andrew MacDougall was a particIularly capable con spin doctor and was hired by a global PR firm. I find the idea that he might now write non-partisan articles for the Globe and Mail and be recommended by progressive bloggers a bit difficult to swallow.

.. will read the MacDougall piece with a pound of salt.. Andrew, now based in monarchy land was a trenchant Harper PR serpent & now trying to pull a Perrin & thus rehab his opinionation creds.. Perrin of course did not obfuscate or skate on Harper, Ray Novak & dear Nigel's behalves in the Duffy scandal

Also.. (with a pound of salt) are the intentions of Beautiful British Columbia regarding pipelines.. Mound of course 'gets it' re the peripheral infrastructure to get Canadian Energy Resources Off to Asia.. the final stage being hordes of supertankers thrashing westward ho.. from west coast portlands in the remperate rain forest. .. and the vast & various pipeline networks for water supply, toxic disposals from wellheads, diluent, pumping ststions, gathering points.. you name it. And keep in mind the variations for LNG and Dilbit..

The miracle & political mythology is that poisoning our water tables, trashing forests & woodlands & killing off species & inter-related food chains forever is somehow 'energy security for Canadians' .. nation building even ! Goodness ! JOBS jobs Jobs.. and TFW's from Asia to man the pipelines.. all subsized by guess who ? ?

BC - Alberta - Saskatchewan .. are pimping for Asia.. and as you may see or have seen.. its a 'long game' being 'played' - unicorn based.. fatal of course - unless you're Jason Kenney, Christy Clark et al .. shrieking it out as 'policy'

Magical thinking seems to be the political currency of the land these days, Salamander. Only when more Canadians are willing to pay attention to "the man behind the curtain" will anything have a chance of changing, and I suspect by then it will be far, far too late.

When you see Lorne, the Infrastructure Bank Act, wrapped up in the omnibus bill with the budget,you know the neoliberal liberal gang is no different then the Harper neoliberal gang.

Did Trudeau have a mandate to create this neoliberal bank, including using 35B of tax payers money? No? So what. This is a government who after being elected went rogue.

What Trudeau and his liberals are doing cannot be considered governing.

When your government tries to hide a policy or decision that they've made, and prevents analysis, by blocking transparency, you know you're in trouble.

Trudeau and company are using their majority government, not to govern for Canadians or nation build, but to govern for the domestic/global/corporate/military elite and turn Canada into a post nation state where the control of Canada's wealth is handed over to corporations, particularly American corporations. The question for me is why?